The final series in Marvel’s X-Men line to reach the Regenesis rebranding might be the most difficult one for me to review. I’m an unapologetic fan of Peter David, X-Factor, and Havok so I had high expectations going in. I can honestly say that X-Factor #230 took me a bit by surprise with its approach and I should never have doubted how David would handle his book being a little more connected to the rest of the X-titles after several years of making its own way.

We’ve spent a good bit of time talking about this Fall’s X-Men: Regenesis here at MLD. Lots of changes are in store for the X-line, and the final day of this year’s New York Comic Con saw nearly all of the creators from the titles involved sitting for a panel talking with fans about what to expect. I almost skipped this presentation altogether after the difficulty of getting into any panels at last year’s show, but thankfully there were plenty of seats in the audience even if they had run out of room on the stage.

Alex Summers, also known as Havok, is arguably my favorite character from Marvel’s X-Men comic books. Unfortunately, his publication history is defined by long stretches of time off panel dating back to his earliest appearances. The most recent of these absences finally concludes today in the pages of X-Men: Legacy #254, the first chapter of a story called “Five Miles South of the Universe.” In commemoration of his return, we’ve even created a sub-site dedicated to Havok here at MLD as a resource for fellow fans.

There was a lot for this X-Men fan to be thankful for this week as all four major X-titles shipped on Wednesday. While in many ways this is great, I can’t help but recognize how much the publishing scheme for these books has changed after they had been coming out weekly for almost all of 2010. With this in mind, I thought it might be a good time revisit the state of the books post-Second Coming.

This will probably contain what some would consider spoilers, so keep that in mind if there are things you’d rather not know about these books.

Mike Carey’s final X-Men: Legacy issue of the X-Men: Second Comingcrossover is on the shelf this week. Carey is one of my favorite writers, so the expectations are high. I haven’t been disappointed by many of his issues over the course of his run on this title, but how does this one measure up? Read on to find out.